Mask
by goddessa39
Summary: Buffycentric angst. BA, but mostly BuffyAngst stuff. After 'Dead Man's Party' she puts on her mask.


_**Masks**_

**Disclaimer: **I only own the fic.

**Pairings: **BA, other.

**Timeline: **Dead Mans Party.

**Genre: **angst

**Summary:** Small dedication to when Buffy put her mask on.

**Notes/Changes: **This is NOT one of my Lady Vengeance fics.

………………………………

She remembers his touch on the night of her 17th birthday. She remembers the feelings of hatred that keened inside of her when Angelus tried to hurt Willow. She had felt the change in him, but hadn't known what it was.

It was later that she found all the proof she needed that her Angel was gone and in his place was the demon that had been kept behind her lover's beautiful soul for the past hundred years. That was when she honed in on the piece inside her that told her that there was something missing, her lover, her mate, her reason.

She couldn't kill Angelus, but she wasn't in love with him like Xander so long scorned her for and no one understood. She couldn't kill him because her dreams were always of her Angel. What if he managed to come back to her somehow? Some miracle would come and just bring him back. He didn't kill anybody, wasn't responsible for any of Angelus's evil deeds.

And then it happened and he called her out after the vampire burned to death right in front of her in first period. Then she found Kendra dead and the others spread around the library. She made a deal with Spike and took him into her home. She told her mother and faced the fact that her mother would never accept her. She should have known when her parents put her into the hospital two years ago…

Within a day, she had come across Acathla and finally accepted that the only place Angel would ever be was in her dreams again. And then that stupid yellow flash had appeared in his eyes and she strangely felt content once again. The portal opened and she was forced to send him to hell. She kept thinking that she should have gone with him, so he at least wouldn't be alone.

But she didn't make it in time and he sank away without her and without any clue as to what Angelus had done in his absence. So she had gathered her stuff and left like her mother had told her too. After a quick glance at her friends in front of the high school, supposedly talking and wondering of her, and she had taken the bus away to LA where she had taken a new name and no past. She was simply 'Anne.' She wasn't a Slayer or a girl with a broken heart. She was simply one of those hundreds of people who daily became empty and that was that.

Then Lily had recognized her and she felt the heavy mask on her face slip away right through her fingers and had had to become Buffy again. So she had returned when she got herself together and relaxed her muscles so that she wouldn't rip Xander to pieces painfully and fulfill the threat on Whistler when she got there. It wasn't till after she left Sunnydale that all the stuff actually went through her mind and made her remember what Xander had told her to pass on from Willow. He lied, she knew. She wouldn't tell though, doing something that the boy would never be able to handle.

And hours later after fights, conversations and confrontations, she was holding the broken mask that had been on Pat's face when she had to kill her. She didn't feel guilty, was no longer able to. She was simply empty and that's how it was going to be.

As she stared at the splintered dark wood, she saw the cracks and traced invisible marks on her face. Later she took some special glue and taped it together. It looked brand new, w/o the special powers.'

It became her own face later, something dangerous that looks completely innocent. It's fine unless you can pay attention to it and see through the patched up cracks that couldn't be fixed really.

So she wore a mask and no one could tell that Buffy was ever anything she didn't want them to think and even when he somehow returned from the clauddagh on the mansion floor, the seams were rubbed apart yet again by her sister's betrayal and Angel's leaving. Could she really even want her mother to notice the truth lying underneath? No, she couldn't even really trust her now she knew, after the time at the hospital with white halls and insane people surrounding a girl of fifteen who was just as confused as any Slayer.

And then he took away her post-Thanksgiving day and she had had to put the mask back on extra strong. She just floated around and let the Slayer take care of everything else.

So here she was three years after she went empty the first time and she was flying high into the white hot energy for the sister that she knew was not really her sister. But maybe the younger girl could get some kind of life. Buffy knew she wasn't empty, and as long as she never fell in love the way she had with Angel, Buffy knew Dawn never would have to.

So she was free in the sleeping place and she didn't have to hold the mask on anymore. She could simply dream of her Angel and her happy times and that was it.

She never counted on the resurrection spell to even be in Willow's hold, but she should have known. So the mask went back on and she constantly wondered if she would ever be able to take it off again…

………………………………

End.


End file.
